Genesis 50:1-3

"And Joseph fell upon his father's face, and wept upon him, and kissed him. And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel. And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of embalming: and the Egyptians wept for him three score and ten days."

Although none of the other brothers are mentioned as displaying such emotion over Jacob's death, we should not believe that only Joseph did this. The probable reason for these actions of Joseph being mentioned was the promise which God made to Joseph in Genesis 46:4. It was therefore most fitting that the sacred text should have made it clear that Joseph indeed was present for the death of his father Jacob.

"His servants the physicians ..." "No doubt the eminence of Joseph's position called for a very great retinue; even a special detail of physicians was commissioned to watch over his health."[1] These were skilled in the science of embalming, probably even more than the professional embalmers. The reason for Jacob's being embalmed lay in the fact that a long period of mourning was scheduled, and also in the necessity to transport the body over a great distance to the land of Canaan.

Regarding the process of embalming, Dummelow had this:

"The brain and intestines were removed, and the stomach cleansed and filled with spices. The body was then steeped in a mixture of salt and soda (called natron), for forty or more days, to preserve from decay. Next, it was bound up in strips of linen smeared with a sort of gum; and finally it was placed in a wooden case, shaped like the human body, and deposited in a sepulchral chamber."[2]

"Egyptian mummies preserved for centuries bear silent witness to the remarkable efficiency of these embalmers."[3] This method of preparing bodies for burial was followed for generations by the Jews, as evidenced in the burial of Jesus himself (John 19:40).

The two time periods mentioned here, the forty days for embalming and the seventy days of mourning probably ran concurrently, since they would hardly have waited until the embalming was completed to begin mourning. This long period of public mourning indicates that the Egyptians gave Jacob "a royal funeral, since it was customary to bewail a Pharaoh's death for seventy-two days."[4] This honor was very similar to that conferred by the United States when a "nineteen gun salute" is accorded a prime minister, contrasted with a "twenty-one gun salute" for the head of a state.